Alabama Head Coach Anthony GrantThoughts on today’s game:“I have to give Cornell a lot of credit. They are a very good basketball team. We talked about it before the game and we understood coming into the game that with the experience they had, they would come in here and play very confident and they did that. I thought they opened up the game from the three-point line and really stretched us a bit and in the second half and I think it was the difference in the game. When you allow a team to make seven three’s in the second half and the game comes down to our defending and rebounds, we weren’t up to the task, and I thought that was the difference in the game.”

“The three-point line is the great equalizer in college basketball, it’s a game changer. They came out tonight and they made some timely threes. They made some where we didn’t do a very good job of getting matched up with their shooters and identifying where we needed to be, and other ones were contested and they actually made some very tough shots. They’re a good basketball team. We knew coming into the game and you watch it on film, they didn’t do anything today that we didn’t expect and unfortunately we weren’t able to come away with the win.”

On Cornell’s experience:“They’re a very good basketball team. I was very proud of our guys. When you get down 15 points, especially a new group that’s new to me, new to what we’re trying to do, our guys kept fighting; they didn’t let adversity knock them back on their heels. They kept belief in each other, they kept playing together, and they gave us a chance to win. Unfortunately we weren’t able to get some stops that we needed; we weren’t able to get some rebounds that we needed; we weren’t able to make some conversions that we needed, and against a good team it’s hard to win when you don’t do those things.”

On what the team can take from the loss:“I want to go back and I want to look at the film. I want to see exactly where we broke down and why we broke down. I thought our guys did a good job today of trying to play to our identity. I thought we fought hard; we put ourselves in position to have a chance. But unfortunately it came down to what we want to pride ourselves on and that’s our ability to defend and rebound, and to be honest with you, I think we didn’t do a good enough job in the second half here today to get the victory. We’ll go back and we’ll look at the game. Our goals don’t change. Our goal is every single day to get better as a basketball team so we have an opportunity to learn from this and get prepared for the next one.”

On second-half defense:“I thought we were able to get the tempo the way we wanted. I thought it allowed us to get ourselves back in the game and gave us a chance to win at the end. And give Cornell credit, they made some plays against the press that were momentum stoppers. (Jeff) Foote inside really hurt us; he made some lay-up conversions against the press as well. They’re a good team. I thought our guys fought hard and we’ll go back, and we’ll look at this, and we’ll get prepared for the next one.”

On JaMychal Green:“It was good to have him on the floor. Obviously we’re a better team when JaMychal is on the floor. I think that JaMychal will tell you at the end of the day, the whole focus was to get a win. We weren’t able to get that win so when you look at the individual numbers they pail in compairison to the final score.”

On other standout players:“It’s a team game. It’s a team game and obviously we have to play as a team and continue to get better as a team.”

On next opponent, Jackson State:“We’ll get prepared for them. With this game just ending right now I don’t know a whole lot about them. Obviously we’ll get prepared for them going forward and we’ll try to learn from this one and get prepared for the next one.”

ALABAMA PLAYERSNo. 1 Anthony BrockOn what can be learned from the loss:“It was a learning experience. They were a very good shooting team; you can’t take that from them. They came to compete just like we did. We’ll just learn from it and take the next step.”

On Cornell’s offense:“They ran their offense to perfection. They were getting open looks. We guarded them the best we could, but they were just a great offense and got open looks.”

On his production in the game:“My teammates did a good job of finding me. We were playing with intensity and playing to win.”

On fighting back in the second half:“It’s just the style of ball Coach (Anthony) Grant wants us playing. We were just trying to play hard and get back in the game.”

On the crowd in the second half:“The intensity picked up so we were feeling very good and trying to make plays.”

No. 32 JaMychal GreenOn what can be taken from the game:“I felt that we got better. I felt that we finally came together as a team and competed hard. We made crucial mistakes in the game that led to the loss. Myself, I missed a couple of layups and we were missing layups. We missed a couple of free throws. We didn’t get the two last rebounds and that’s what won the game.”

On Cornell’s inside presence:“No. 1 (Jeff Foote), he was huge – 7-foot-1 I believe. No. 33 (Alex Tyler) was strong. They had a good interior inside. I felt that our post fought hard even though we were undersized.”

On his strong play early in the season:“I felt like it was a good game, even though we lost. We became better as a team. We fought hard and competed out there. We showed a lot of fight in our hearts. Right now, even though we lost, we still showed progress.”

Cornell Head Steve Donahue“I have a lot of respect for the Alabama team, and I really believe in what (Coach) Anthony (Grant) is trying to do here. Honestly, I think we caught them at a good time, while Coach Grant is still trying to get his stuff in. Still, it’s great to come in and get a win on the road against an SEC opponent like Alabama. I think they’ll be pretty good come January. We have a bunch of veteran leadership on this team and it means a lot to them to beat a big school like Alabama on the road to start the year.”

“Alabama had some pretty good runs in the second half getting the lead down to one or two and I think we showed a lot of resolve stopping the bleeding. It’s a characteristic we really lacked last year. We blew a double digit lead against Minnesota and against Syracuse we were up fifteen, and failed to close it out. Today we did a much better job against the pressure and didn’t fold and thankfully came out on top.”